Health, Best Practice Group 10

The NHS Future Forum has added the integration of health and social care to its list of priorities in its second phase.

Lansley named the three focus areas for the second stage of the listening exercise as education and training, information, and public health; but a fourth focus has been added – integration. Balancing the reform’s emphasis on competition, an emphasis will now be placed on integrated care.

Integration refers both to integration between health and social care, and integration within the NHS. The Forum’s recommendations will hopefully feed into the government’s forthcoming white paper on social care, and the response to the Dilnot review on long term care (http://www.dilnotcommission.dh.gov.uk/2011/07/04/commission-report/).

Mr Cameron himself reportedly said that he believes better integration ‘is a way of better engaging with people’.

The four workstreams will not attempt to amend the Health Bill, but feed into future areas of policy. Prof. Field, chair of the Forum, emphasised the need to keep public health “at the heart of the NHS”.

[HSJ, 25th August]